Find the perfect quote to float your boat. Shmoop breaks down key quotations from In the Time of the Butterflies.
Family Quotes
"No, I mean, where are you in the sequence, the youngest, the oldest?"So the woman has not read any of the articles or biographies around. Dedé is relieved. This means that they can spend the time...
Violence Quotes
"You still don't get it? Minerva, don't you see? Trujillo is having everyone killed!" (1.2.78)
Sacrifice Quotes
"But Minerva, your own child—" I began and then I saw it did hurt her to make this sacrifice she was convinced she needed to make. (2.8.60)
Courage Quotes
I started crying, but I pinched my arms to stop. I had to be brave for Sinita. (1.2.75)
Women and Femininity Quotes
"Ay, Dios mÃo, spare me." Mamá sighs, but playfulness has come back into her voice. "Just what we need, skirts in the law!""It is just what this country needs." Minerva's voice has the steely sur...
Memory and the Past Quotes
Now after thirty-four years, the commemorations and interviews and presentations of posthumous honors have almost stopped, so that for months at a time Dedé is able to take up her own life again....
Society and Class Quotes
"Enrique, those girls need some learning. Look at us." Mamá had never admitted it, but I suspected she couldn't even read."What's wrong with us?" Papá countered […]. In the last few years, PapÃ...
Religion Quotes
"Sweet Patria, always her religion was so important.""Always?" the woman says, just the slightest challenge in her voice."Always," Dedé affirms, used to this fixed, monolithic language around inte...
Power Quotes
Suddenly, the dark fills with spies who are paid to hear things and report them down at Security. Don Enrique claims Trujillo needs help in running this country. Don Enrique's daughter says it's ab...
Freedom and Confinement Quotes
Sometimes, watching the rabbits in their pens, I'd think, I'm no different from you, poor things. One time, I opened a cage to set a half-grown doe free. I even gave her a slap to get going.But she...